News
The Oregon Health Plan in January will begin covering the costs of hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery for transgender Oregonians who are covered under Medicaid, the state's Health Evidence Review Commission voted today. "I’m really happy for everyone in the community," says Rebekah Brewis, a Portland woman who castrated herself in prison after the state ...
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Murmurs
Gay-rights advocates aren’t waiting to fight back against a
proposed ballot measure that would allow businesses to refuse wedding
services to same-sex couples. A new group led by Basic Rights Or
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Marriage equality is on its way to Oregon despite advocates’ tactical errors.

News Stories
When Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum announced
last week that her office would not defend the state’s constitutional
ban on gay marriage, it signaled the decade-long battle for marriage
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Some supporters dismayed BRO has pressed pause

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Oregon United for Marriage has suspended its campaign to challenge the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage at the November election after Oregon’s Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum announced today that the government won’t fight a lawsuit challenging the ban in court. Oregon United for Marriage, a coalition including Basic Right Oregon, has gathered 160,000 signatures since last summer—enough ...
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No Native American tribe in Oregon has laws that makes violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members a hate crime, but a new legal toolkit released today by Basic Rights Oregon hopes to change that.The toolkit contains example wording and ways for tribes create new laws to give rights to LGBT members of their nation, says Se-ah-dom Edmo, coordinator of the Indigenous Ways of Knowing ...
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Tim Hibbitts may be the dean of Oregon pollsters. For almost four decades, Hibbitts, once a partner of the polling firm DHM Research, has crunched numbers and had a front row seat on the changes in the electorate in this state. His thoughtful analysis and broad understanding of Oregon history has made him invaluable to political journalists over the years, even though he long ago stopped polling for ...
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Citing "the expense of waging a statewide political campaign in the midst of an economic crisis," Oregon's largest gay rights organization has announced that it will not pursue an equal marriage ballot measure in 2012. Democratic blog BlueOregon first reported the announcement by Basic Rights Oregon earlier this afternoon. From BRO's announcement:We have considered the possibility of putting this ...
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The latest step in Basic Rights Oregon's effort to bring marriage rights to same-sex couples in Oregon will become visible next week with a statewide TV ad campaign and a direct mailing to households in the Portland metro area.BRO executive director Jeana Frazzini told WW in an interview earlier this week that the TV ads would run for three weeks throughout Oregon and that they are similar to earlier ...
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If you're in a Valentine's Day kind of mood and liked our love story a couple weeks ago about former Catholic priest Jim Stephens and his fiancé Darold Slack, you can read more local same-sex romance stories here collected by Basic Rights Oregon.BRO's "Cards from the Heart" campaign wants same-sex couples to share their stories in advance of Feb. 14 in an effort to raise awareness about same-sex ...
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